REMINISCING

As a founding member of Australia’s legendary Little River Band, Graeham Goble is one of the greatest songwriters to come out of that country. Goble wrote two of Little River Band’s most popular and biggest selling singles, “Reminiscing” and “Lady.” “Reminiscing” has been Goble’s calling card ever since with the song having become part of American culture and psyche. It has even earned Goble a BMI Special Citation of Achievement Award for having accumulated a whopping five million plays on U.S. commercial radio. Four of his other songs, “Lady,” “Take It Easy on Me,” “The Other Guy” and “The Night Owls,” also earned him similar BMI awards. Goble has been a dedicated archivist during his illustrious career and has kept a record of all the dates when his songs were written.

“I wrote ‘Reminiscing’ on April 9, 1977,” remembers Goble when asked about how he came to write the song. As he answers my question, he looks through his diary entry to confirm the details. “We had just done (Australian 1970s television music show) on that day and while we were sitting backstage, we were just playing our guitars and our lead guitarist David Briggs showed me this chord shape, a jazz-sounding C9 chord. I hadn’t previously known that shape at the time, and so I learned the chord as it